Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

Some thoughts on the current meta around TBS, and I am deliberately being very careful about how I phrase this (and again, no, this is *not* an invitation to complain about things you think are related):

- A large amount of people has no fucking clue what is going on right now, because there are no reliable cohesive sources of information as far as I can tell, and people claim all sorts of things.

Only the fall-out is currently visible to most onlookers, and it is rather confusing to them and *not* likely to result in anything beneficial long-term. Calling things out is a good thing, but it does need to actually be understandable *what* you are calling out.

- This is a very good example of why receipts are important, because over half of the claims flying around are misrepresentations, but I only know that because I have been following *all* of the involved parties over the past several months.

If people are expected to believe *everything* currently being said at face value (even if just considering the claims of bigotry of some sort), the resulting conclusions would be a) completely wrong, b) very Not Good for everyone involved

- There is a lot of racism involved. There is also a lot of ableism involved. This time around, there doesn't seem to be much transphobia involved, and the article that claims there is, is wildly off-base on many of the entries they're reviewed (I know this because I looked into their FediBlocks when they first appeared).

- I think *everybody* involved should take a step back and try to find a constructive way forward, and this is going to involve some critical introspection about the behaviour in one's own group, and how your friends have contributed to the problem.

- If you think that's a euphemism to blame one 'side' without naming it, no it isn't. I can assure you that your 'side' is meant to be included in that statement too. I also know that people from all 'sides' involved are following me.

I am really quite tired of this particular conflict already. Not because there are no real problems that need to be solved; but because the way things are going now, no progress actually seems to be made towards solving it. It only seems to get worse.

I don't normally do quote toots, but this is an exception, because I think this post makes an important point, *but* I only partly agree with it, and it is a very touchy topic.

https://furry.engineer/@silvereagle/111060840692508037

This is a very real problem, and definitely something that not enough mind is paid to. And I mean in general, and also outside of fedi(!) - not just with recent events, which is what I suspect this post is referring to.

However, there is another side of that coin. Because while there are legitimate reasons to not be aware of things like this, the really important thing is how you respond when you *are* made aware of it.

When someone straight-up tells you "that is not okay, because <consequences and context>", do you take a step back, re-evaluate, and correct and apologize where necessary? Or do you double down on "I could not have known that!" as if that relieves you from any obligation to do anything about it?

Because there is a responsibility here on both parties. Yes, people should not assume that the social implications of actions are obvious to everybody, and be prepared to communicate directly and clearly about them.

But conversely, those people for whom they are not, need to accept that this means their actions are sometimes going to have unintended consequences, and be open to correcting course promptly when that happens.

With that having been said, yes, this is a very widespread problem, and I would say that it's a good example of how in the wrong circumstances, genuinely protective behaviour in leftist communities can turn into ableist lateral violence.

(Note: if you're thinking of responding to this by going "yeah, so-and-so is an asshole, aren't they": don't. This is not an invitation for harassing people, and I *will* block you for it. This is a much more general problem that's been bouncing around on fedi for a while. Likewise, this is *not* an invitation to complain about defederation. Defederation is a legitimate and necessary mechanism.)

I wish more people remembered that it's possible for multiple parties in a dispute to be in the wrong.

A heuristic: if someone conflates "what capitalism is" and "what trade/economics are", then they probably do not understand capitalism well enough to be speaking authoritatively about it, regardless of whether they think it is good or bad

Like, I find it hard to explain, but they've somehow managed to make the UI feel more cluttered despite containing about the same amount of stuff that was there before

Well. I was hoping that Thunderbird would get a redesign one day, and it did, but... I don't think this new design is very good :|